Perspective — that is what is needed after the BBC spotlight has faded and Alan Shearer’s apparently overly-negative assessment has been watched back on iPlayer.

Two TV appearances in five days and if you paid to go to Portman Road for either you’ll wish you hadn’t.

Both displays fell below what we have come to expect, with a lack of bite in the final third and bad decision-making on the ball throughout most the team, particularly in Wednesday’s Southampton FA Cup replay, proving costly.

BUT, remember we were well in both 1-0 defeats, against a Derby County side I expect to finish in the top two, and a Saints team who are third in the Premier League, and buoyed by wins over Arsenal and Manchester United this month.

The disappointment at not taking our chances against Derby (Chris Martin scoring worse than Darren Bent) was compounded by Tommy Smith’s ‘mistake’ (I’m not so sure the wind wasn’t the Rams’ helping hand).

Despite it looking like we could have had a penalty on another day, we weren’t at our best.

And neither were we against Ronald Koeman’s slick Saints.

With a good friend back on shore from his day job sailing the world, I was among the scramble for general sale tickets for Wednesday.

And after we were unable to get four, Richard Moss from Bury was our saviour, offering his seats.

He said he was more interested in funding trips to Millwall tomorrow and Brighton a week Saturday (both 3pm).

You have to think he had the right idea.

Fail to take four points from those two and I will start to worry. COYB!

* This week was also disappointing for another Ipswich team in an FA cup: the under-18s exiting the FA Youth Cup after extra time in the third round at Sunderland.

The side included the talk of Debenham High School; George Fowler, who made his under-21s debut aged 15 last season, at centre-half alongside Christophe Berra.

At the time he was still on a two-day a week release agreement from school, but is now in the first year of his two-year scholarship after turning down the chance to go to London-based Premier League clubs.

Academy director Bryan Klug speaks very highly of the player from Ashfield, near Debenham, who became the first Town player to play three age groups up in the academy since a certain Connor Wickham.

Mick McCarthy apparently even sees some of himself as a player in George.

He’s struggled with injury this season, but is now back and raring to make his mark again.